


Domestic [Dis]Harmony

by Merfilly



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Jingle Bells Batman Smells Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-03
Updated: 2010-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-13 14:03:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1229155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A domestic moment about money</p>
            </blockquote>





	Domestic [Dis]Harmony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dixid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixid/gifts).



Roy pushed the bills and the checkbook away with an irritable glare at both of them. It wasn't easy making ends meet as a hero who occasionally did work for the government. Hell, half the time, the government expected him not to take a paycheck, given that they knew just who he was and what he did daily. And nightly. 

He sighed softly to himself, glanced at the clock, and then shook his head. Not much longer that he could work on this, given that Lian would be home from school any time now, he realized.

"Featherhead, everything okay?" Dick asked, padding into the kitchen in a pair of lounging pants and nothing more.

If Roy hadn't been fretting so hard over the bills, it might have been enough to distract him from his worries. The fact that it didn't was more than enough to jangle Dick's well-honed detective senses.

"Just doing the bills and coming up a thousand or so short for the month," Roy said before his brain could engage and censor his mouth. He knew better, knew he had just given Dick an opening that would just lead to...

"I could cover it. I'm mostly living here, anyway." Dick's casual offer dropped with all the subtlety of an Acme Anvil.

"We've had this talk."

"And you're being unnecessarily stubborn about it."

The point and counterpoint were familiar, but Roy's nerves were strained too far. He hated being called on his stubbornness almost as much as he hated not standing on his own two feet. Dick was not going to get away with tromping on both issues at once.

"Dick, I said no. My house, my daughter, my bills, my responsibilities. Period. End of story." The archer's jaw tightened as he saw his lover's brows knit in that particular fashion that said he wasn't going to drop it this time.

"Christmas is right around the corner. You're coming up short on bills, how are you going to spoil Lian?" Dick countered, using a low-blow, and knowing it for being that, to try and curtail this argument fast.

"You son of a..." Roy glared angrily at Dick from across the room, as Dick leaned back on the kitchen table. "I said, from the beginning, I was not going to take any money off of you, that I would not be a freeloader on the Wayne trust funds!" He knew his voice was rising, but this was a house, not an apartment complex. He could get loud and not have the neighbors call the cops immediately.

"You're not freeloading!" Dick said, his own voice staying even in what he thought was a rational manner. Never mind that his voice staying low would just set the more temperamental half of their household off on a worse tear. "I'm offering to help, legitimately, when I live here, I'm helping raise Lian, and I have the money to spare in my own name!"

Roy opened his mouth, a blue streak of profanity in at least two languages prepared to fall out of it, when motion at the door to the kitchen broke both of their attentions to one another.

Lian was looking from her father to her favorite uncle-turned-papa with big, solemn brown eyes. The little girl still had her backpack on, and Roy registered the sound of the bus pulling down the street. He'd built this life for her, so she could have something approaching a normal childhood. Both he and Dick had endeavored hard to make sure they fit the cover identities they'd built in this suburb of New York. Roy was buying the house, and Dick was the friend who stayed there a lot, to help look after Lian, as far as neighbors knew. 

The girl didn't say a word, and maybe that, more than anything, took all the temper out of her father, watching her turn around and run to her bedroom to escape the idea of her two role models bickering angrily with one another. In the past, when Titans got into arguments with Titans, life changed. Roy knew that had to be what she was thinking, right about now.

Roy ran a hand over his face, then through his hair, and took a deep breath. "We'll talk. Let me go settle her down, get her started on homework, all that jazz?"

"Yeah." Dick knew, understood, they'd crossed some kind of line, by letting Lian see and hear them argue like that over something so domestic. Dick didn't want to back down, but he knew he'd lose Roy in a heartbeat if Lian wasn't taken care of, emotionally and otherwise, to the best of Roy's ability, even if it was all in Roy's head that he might be failing her.

"Lian, honey?" Roy walked down the hall, turning into the young girl's room. "Etai yazi?"

The small girl looked up from where she had flung herself into her pile of plushies and stuffed animals, coming up out of it with her Speedy and Robin, the ones that were connected at the hand and foot, because they were best buddies. The sight of it made Roy feel a lump in his throat. All these years, and he was fighting with Dick over what? Money? Pride?

"Daddy, I don't want Papa to go away!"

That made the lump become a full knot, and Roy knelt down to open his arms to her, relieved when she came into the embrace and let her hold him.

"He won't. I promise you. He won't."

`~`~`~`~`

Roy settled in along Dick's side later that night. Homework had led to cooking which had led to family time, and then finally to Lian being put to bed. Through it all, Roy and Dick let the matter of money lie carefully silent. Now, though, both still awake, aware of the words from earlier and the mini-crisis of Lian, they knew it had to be discussed.

"Okay, you do live here. Mostly." Roy kept himself calm, fighting the pride down. "If I let you take over the groceries, things will get better. But only if you're paying them from your job."

"Utilities and groceries, and I won't touch Bruce's money ever for anything for the house." Dick wanted this to be a full partnership, and this was a move in that direction.

"Half, plus groceries, and you buy pizza on Friday nights." It hurt somewhere deep inside Roy to finally open this far to what they had, but on the other hand, it felt like something long overdue.

"Deal." Dick shifted then, impish smile touching his lips. "Kiss on it?"

Roy breathed out in a half-hearted chuckle, then leaned up and kissed his lover lightly... and then again, until neither one was much interested in money or bills at all.


End file.
